Boy, I'm really phoning it in with this week's article title. Anyway, it's the last full week before we get a midseason breather for the All Star Break, so it's a fairly busy one. Tiers 1 and 2 look like more fun than an Alabama Slammahamma. Don't bother Googling that, I just made it up. It sounds like a real thing though, doesn't it? Tier 3 isn't quite the juicy peach we had a week ago, but some options may be on your waiver wire. Tier 4 gives us a bountiful bouquet of bodaciousness, with a vast array of not-horrible starters that have decent matchups. Danny Duffy climbing out of the bottom tier might be optimistic, but his duo of AL Central opponents are enticing. There are even a couple of Tier 5 guys that might be of deep league interest, but...we've officially hit the Tommy Milone point in the season. Will he really get two starts? Everyone hopes not. Don't even talk to me about his minor league numbers, they're always good. He's the epitome of a Quad-A pitcher. Even in what would be his second start against the Mets who can't hit a lick against lefties, I'd rather just run into the corner of a groin-high kitchen table and call it a day.
Yesterday, Trea Turner hit his 10th and 11th homer, contributing 8 RBIs, touching home plate three times for those jimmies (what they call runs on the east coast) and hitting .280 on the year. Feels like people are not excited about Turner so much this year. Please, blog, may I have some more?
What a difference a week makes. A week ago there wasn't a ton of movement, but this week I felt like an overhaul was in store. We'll get to the risers and fallers in a little bit, but first there is a bit of scuttlebutt to address. No, not Scuzzlebutt the basket-weaving monster who lives in the mountains of South Park and has Patrick Duffy for a leg and a stick of celery for an arm. SCUTTLEbutt. The largest of which has to be the surprise demotion of Rockies Opening Day starter Jon Gray to Triple-A Albuquerque. Gray had a particularly heinous 5.77 ERA, so bad that Mariska Hargitay had begun poking around Coors Field to keep an eye on things. His FIP, however, is a sterling 3.07 (11th best among qualified starters), and his K-BB% is 21.8% (12th best). You can't even point to Coors Field as causing his troubles, with a 5.89 road ERA. This looks like incredibly bad luck, but with this demotion clearly the team is focused on something mechanical. It'll be pretty hard to hang on to him in standard mixers, although he may not be down for too long if they fix what needs a-fixin' right quick. I'd try to hold him in a bench spot if you can in 15+ team leagues. Elsewhere, there aren't too many notable promotions, but there are a few new names on the back end to peep.
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The Mets started Jerry "Mathers As The" Blevins yesterday (as a starter; not because the Mets are 'bullpenning' but because they are bullsh*tting), taking advantage of the Mets waving the white (person sitcom star) flag was everyone on the Dodgers. First up,
Enrique Hernandez (3-for-6, 3 runs, hitting .232) as he hit his 11th and 12th homer in Metco. Or as Jesse Jackson would say, "Kike homered in Jaime town." By the by, players who Hernandez has more homers than (this is gonna make you cry): Jose Abreu, Bregman, Dozier, Ozuna, Matt Chapman and Smoak, to name but a few. I've been rocking Enrique -- sounds Enrisqué! -- for the whole year in an NL-Only league, but he doesn't play every day (unlike all those schmohawks he's besting on power). Next up, Cody Bellinger (2-for-5, hitting .239) as he hit his 14th and 15th homer. I get the sense that people think Cody's absolutely bombing out his sophomore year. Not close. He's not repeating his great rookie year (yet), but he is top 75-ish on the
Player Rater and could easily be top 30 on the year with one extended hot streak. Lastly, Max Muncy (2-for-5) hit his 15th homer, or as I like to call him, This Year's Chris Taylor. Muncy is having a legitimate breakout, or the Dodgers are slowly poisoning Taylor to make Muncy look great for a case of Muncyhausen By Proxy. I think it's the former, but a teamster smoking may not be the only one leaning on the latter. To buy Muncy's breakout, you have to buy a near-30% HR/FB, but he is top 35 for exit velocity, top 10-ish for hard contact percentage, and 2nd for Barrels. What does all this mean? The breakout looks real and beautiful. Anyway, here's what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Surprise!! Kershaw is back! Again. Hopefully for the last time. We all love Kershaw whether we own him or not (come on, the guy builds houses in third world counties in his off time). Therefore for the good of baseball, Kershaw should be allowed to have a personal masseuse on the field at all times to loosen him up between pitches. Anything that back needs, get that masseuse in there and rub it out. No more DL stints! Someone get me Manfred's number. Of course, for every give there is a take, and we lost Carlos Carrasco to a nasty comebacker off the elbow. It doesn't sound like he'll be gone too long, but he's off the list this week. Outside of that we had a relatively quiet week for starting pitchers. We lost the likes of Aaron Sanchez and Jose Urena to the DL, but those guys aren't leaving anyone's season hanging in the balance. Michael Wacha does appear to be gone for a significant amount of time with an oblique strain though, and that is a more significant loss. Despite the fact that he seemed obscenely overrated by the Razzball community, I didn't want to see him go. Especially considering he's being replaced by John Gant. Yay. We're also in that dead zone before the midseason call ups, so we don't have too many debuts to discuss this week on the list. Most starters pretty much pitched like you'd expect them to this week as well, so there wasn't a ton of serious moving and shaking. That makes this sound like a bit of a dance, which I guess it kind of is. I prefer the Mashed Potato, myself. Since there isn't a ton of movement, I want to touch on some of the guys I haven't talked about this year in addition to a few newcomers to the list.
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Kelvin Herrera was traded to the Nationals, and immediately lost his fantasy value — from a total geek to totally chic back to Game of Thrones’ Reek. From a SAGNOF hero to a SAGNOF zero. Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day, but now it's time to get back to the grind. And what better way is there to start the week than by dominating DFS on
Draft.com? I know I can't think of one. So much about baseball is unpredictable, which makes it important to lock up pitching early in daily games. Be sure to take note of the first two pitchers below: Trevor Bauer and Gerrit Cole. You can find position players later.
Streamonator loves both these guys and you should, too. For the record, I love them too, but I imagine you trust Streamonator more than you trust me.
New to Draft? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!
Whew! It turns out taking a week off from ranking these guys makes for a lot of work the next time out. As you might imagine, there is a bit more moving and shaking than normal this week. Surprise surprise, we've also had a slew of injuries that continue to take it's toll on the top 50. We've lost Stephen Strasburg, Walker Buehler, and Garrett Richards most notably, with Clayton Kershaw and Noah Syndergaard looking lost for extended periods. The aces that are left continue to dominate though, and Trevor Bauer has worked his way into the top 10. We did get Madison Bumgarner back, but he hasn't looked very sharp and I'm wondering if he belongs in the top 20 at this point. Carlos Martinez has been killing his owners since his return from the DL himself, yet his upside makes it hard to drop him too hard just yet. On the brighter side of things, Tyler Skaggs, with whom we planted flags several weeks ago, continues to climb the list in glorious fashion. Also, I still have no idea how Ross Stripling is suddenly an ace, but he keeps shoving and I keep ranking him higher. I'd consider selling depending on what you're getting in return, but I'm probably just enjoying the ride if I have Stripling. Let's go in depth on a half dozen other Risers, Fallers, and Newcomers of interest this week.
Ketel Marte (3-5% FAAB) is not the most intriguing pick-up of all time. He will not star in any Dos Equis commercials alongside silver-haired foxes who dive out of planes into the North Atlantic as an extreme form of salmon fishing. However, if you have injuries, it was surprising to see Marte available on the waiver wire. If your league is savvy enough, someone may be stashing the 24-year-old Arizona shortstop still trying to achieve his full potential. Since June began, Marte has 3 of his 4 HR to go along with a .426 ISO, 209 wRC+, and 3 barrels, that have all come on offspeed pitches. He has found more success this year on breaking and offspeed pitches. In fact, all 4 of his homers have come off of these offerings. Marte hasn't made significant changes. However, now that he has 316 games of experience in the majors, this young player can finally be comfortable in the box against big league stuff. The MLB is not the best for a kid who can't catch up to fastballs. Ketel Marte is now making all the contact you want to see while adding a little power to go with the speed. He's not going to turn into a 20/20 candidate overnight, but that speed potential has been there this whole time. Pairing it with 15 HR pop is what Marte needed to stay relevant in today's fantasy baseball landscape. While Ketel Marte doesn't have off-the-charts raw power, he is looking a little more athletic these days, and it shows in the numbers. Pick him up where he is available and enjoy a solid floor for the rest of the season.
Don't be dour, Bauer, the Cole Sale isn't until tomorrow in Greinke's DeGrom! Greinke's DeGrom can be whatever you like it to be, but I like to think it's a fancy bathroom in the Diamondbacks dugout that only Greinke can use, and it's bedazzled with copper plating that has his likeness pressed into it. It also features a bidet that only churns out pine tar, because you can never have too good a grip on things. That first sentence does happen to include the names of each starter from this week's Tier 1 by the way, what a coincidence! We've got a nice chunk of nine guys between the first two tiers, but alas Tier 3 is weak with just four names. Tiers 4 and 5 are where the real action is as this week, making it a less than desirable streaming week. The likes of Caleb Smith and Marco Gonzales have been plenty useful this season, but bad matchups push each of them to Tier 4. Good luck trying to guess which Sonny Gray you're going to get, the Sonny or the Gray, and mediocre matchups keep him dwelling in Tier 4 as well. Out of the mucky muck of Tier 5 you could perhaps cast your lot with "The Coors Kielbasa" German Marquez, but doubling up in Coors Field isn't exactly my cup of tea. Here's a look at some of the other notable two-start pitchers this week.
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"Lower the koozie a little bit. No, a little bit more. Okay, now spray some mist on the outside of the can to make it look like it's sweating. Now rub your finger from the D in Dr. to the R in Pepper. This is romance! For me!" That's me explaining to Cougs how I want her to seduce me with a visual metaphor of Juan Soto. Or as I like to call him, Sexy Dr. Pepper. Last night he hit two more homers (2-for-3, 4 RBIs) and now has five homers on the year, hitting .344 since his call-up and he's only 19 years old. *puts handkerchief to head, faints* He was the first 19-year-old to homer at a Yankee Stadium since Ken Griffey Jr. in 1989. He is the fifth youngest major leaguer with a two-homer game (Mel Ott, Danny Murphy (not that one), Griffey, Andruw Jones). He is the third youngest major leaguer to show up at Yankee Stadium and say, "A concession guy offered his wife to me for sex." (Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich) Not to put the hype too much to eleven, but he is blowing away what Bryce and Trout did when they were both 19 years old. 19-year-olds who hit a home run in the last 40 years: Soto, Bryce, Trout, Justin Upton, Andruw, Griffey and Juan Gonzalez. Betting on a 19-year-old to fail who is already up in the majors succeeding is betting the Don't Pass line, and no one likes that guy. Anyway, here's what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Drafting
Anthony Rizzo is the first step in the blueprint for success on Wednesday. Rizzo has been getting busy in the last 15 days, batting .327 with a 1.094 OPS and five homers. He gets to take advantage of one of the best hitter's parks in the league in Milwaukee, where he already homered on Monday. Rizzo should have the opportunity to drive in plenty of runs as the Cubs cleanup hitter against Jhoulys Chacin, who has a 4.75 Deserved Run Average this season. I'd try pairing Rizzo with a teammate like Kyle Schwarber, but even as a standalone play, Rizzo is worth an early pick on Draft.
New to Draft.com? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!
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